(Prayer: Letters Patent Appeal (disposed of on 8-4-1952) against the order and judgment of Subba Rao J. in W.P. No. 83 of 1951 dated 20-11-1951 to issue a writ of certiorari calling for the records in the proceedings relating to G.O.R. 1368 Home dated 14-5-1961 and the proceedings of the Central Road Traffic Board, Egmore, Madras, in R. No. 44023/A. 1 of 1950 dated 10-2-1951 and quash the same as illegal and without jurisdiction.)

This is an appeal against the judgment of our learned brother, Subba Rao J. dismissing an application for the issue of a writ of certiorari to quash the orders of the State of Madras and the Central Road Traffic Board dated 14-5-1951 and 10-2-1951 respectively. Our learned brother, in the judgment under appeal, has set out the facts more elaborately and it will be sufficient to confine ourselves in this judgment to such of the facts as are essential for the disposal of this Letters Patent Appeal.

The appellant, Nadar Transports, Tiruchirapalli, and the third respondent, Shanmugham Pillai, were competitors for permits to run buses on two routes, route 1-A and route

8. In the first instance, the Regional Transport Authority issued two permits to the appellant for route 1-A and one to the respondent for the same route and granted one permit in route 8 to the appellant. This order was subsequently cancelled and there was a fresh notification on the 1st October 1950, in which the number of the buses to run in route No. 8 was increased from one to two. The Regional Transport Authority granted five permits to the appellant for routes 1-A and 8, i.e., three permits to ply three buses in route 1-A and two permits to ply two buses in route

8. Before the Regional Transport Authority, the third respondent did not make any representations against the grant of the permits to the appellant. The order granting five permits to the appellant was the subject matter of an appeal by the third respondent to the Central Road Traffic Board, which modified the order of the Regional Transport Authority by granting two permits for route 8 to the respondent and restricting the appellants right to three permits in route 1-A. There was an application to revise this order to the State of Madras under S. 64-A and that application was unsuccessful. Thereafter the appellant approached this Court with an application to issue a writ of certiorari quashing the proceedings of the Government. The matter was heard by Subba Rao J. and before him three questions were raised on behalf of the appellant (1) Shanmugam Pillai, the third respondent did not apply for permits, and therefore, the Central Road Traffic Board had no power to issue two permits to him; (2) as Shanmugham Pillai did not file any written representation before the Regional Transport Authority under S. 57(4) of the Motor Vehicles Act he had no right of appeal against that order under S. 64 of the said Act; (3) the order of the Regional Transport Authority is vitiated by an error apparent on the face of the record. On all the points the learned Judge decided against the appellant. He found on the first point that in fact the two applications filed by the respondent were treated as applications for two permits and the enquiry proceeded on that basis. This point however is not now pressed before us.

On the second point he found that the appellant had an undoubted right of appeal as he was an aggrieved party under S. 64-A of the Act. On the third point he was not satisfied that there was any error apparent on the face of the record to attract the jurisdiction of this Court to quash the order of the Government by a Writ of Certiorari.

Before us Mr. K. Bhashyam, the learned Advocate for the appellant, argued only two points. In the first place he urged that there was an error apparent on the face of the record; and secondly that the respondent had no right of appeal against the order of the Regional Transport Authority to the Central Road Traffic Board, and in any event as he made no representations before the Regional Transport Authority objecting to the grant of a permit to the appellant, he was precluded from raising any ground attacking the order of the Regional Transport Authority as being invalid and unjust.

As regards the first point, it was claimed that the statement in the order of the Central Road Traffic Board, that the appellant was a new entrant and that therefore he should not be given permits for five buses at one and the same time, was an obvious error, as he was running buses on temporary permits even by that time, and what is more, the respondent also was in a similar position, and they ought not to have made any invidious distinction between the respondent and the appellant on that ground. In a sense the appellant undoubtedly was a new entrant, for, it was admitted that before 25-4-1949 the date of the first order of the Regional Transport Authority under which two permits for route 1-A and one permit for route 8 were granted to the appellant, he did not run any bus and had no experience of bus service. The reason that he was a new entrant was given by the appellate authority for reducing the number of permits from 5 to 3 and not for excluding him altogether from the grant of permits. They also gave as an additional reason that the respondent was an efficient operator. For these reasons, they granted two permits for route 8 in favour of the respondent. There is no error apparent on the face of that order, and the discretion exercised by the Central Road Traffic Board cannot be interfered with by this Court in a writ of certiorari even if the grounds that have been given in support of the order are such as would not appeal to us if we are considering the matter for the first time. The objection, therefore, that the order was vitiated by an error apparent on the face of the record, must be overruled, and we agree with the learned Judge that there is no substance in this contention.

The second objection resolves itself into two parts. In the first place the question is raised whether the respondent had a right of appeal at all to the Central Road Traffic Board. The second aspect raises the question of the scope and limit of the power of the appellate authority in disposing of the matter. Two sub-sections of S. 64 of the Motor Vehicles Act are relevant in this connection. Under Sub-S. (a).

Any person aggrieved by the refusal of the Provincial or a Regional Transport Authority to grant a permit, or by any condition attached to a permit granted to him.

And under Sub-S. (f):

Any personwho, having opposed the grant of a permit, is aggrieved by the grant thereof may within the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner, appeal to the prescribed authority who shall give such person and the original authority an opportunity of being heard.

The respondent was undoubtedly an aggrieved person as the Regional Transport Authority refused to grant him a permit for route 8, and he would therefore be entitled to prefer an appeal against the order granting a permit in favour of the appellant. Under Sub-S. (f) the respondent was a person providing transport facilities; but the question is whether he can be treated as a person who opposed the grant of a permit. The argument urged is that under S. 57, Sub-Ss. (3) and (4) a person objecting to the grant of a permit to another is required to make his representations in connection therewith within thirty days from the date of publication of the application or the substance thereof in the prescribed manner, and if he fails to make a representation within the time permitted by law, he is precluded from making any further representations to the Regional Transport Authority objecting to the grant of the permit to the other. Of course, the representation must be made in writing before the appointed date, furnishing also simultaneously a copy to the applicant. The argument is that, as the third respondent made no representation before the Regional Transport Authority objecting to the grant of a permit in favour of the appellant, he cannot be described as a person who opposed the grant of a permit, and therefore the respondent could not have claimed a right of appeal to the Central Road Traffic Board. S. 6

4. Sub-Ss. (a) and (f) are intended in our opinion to apply to different situations. Sub-S. (a) is confined only to cases where a person is aggrieved by the refusal of the Regional Transport Authority to grant a permit to him or is aggrieved by any condition attached to a permit granted to him. There may be a person who while applying for the grant of a permit for himself has also objected to the grant of a permit to the other. In such a case if the permit is refused to him he would fulfill the conditions of both Sub-Ss. (a) and (f). There may be a person who though he had not applied for a permit to himself, was a person who provided transport facilities and opposed the grant of a permit to another, and if the permit is granted to the other, notwithstanding that he did not apply for a permit he would be entitled to prefer an appeal agains t the order under Sub-S. (f), though he would not answer the description in Sub-

3. (a) as a person aggrieved by the refusal of the Regional Transport Authority to grant a permit. The language used in Sub-S. (f) is restricted only to opposition to the grant of a permit, for it says having opposed the grant of permit. It does not say that he should be a person who made also a representation in writing opposing the grant of a permit to the other as required by S. 57, Sub-Ss. (3) and (4). A person, without t filing any written representation objecting to the grant of a permit to another, might formally object to the grant of a permit, and even such a person, if he satisfies the other requirements that he is a person providing transport facilities, might possibly have a right of appeal. The view taken therefore by Subba Rao, J., that the third respondent had a right of appeal under Sub-S. (a) in the present case is undoubtedly correct.

There remains the further question, whether in urging the grounds in the appeal, the respondent was confined to the representations, if any, made by him and whether the power of the appellate authority in considering the grounds urged against the order is to be confined only to the representations, if any, made by the respondent before the Regional Transport Authority, or whether the appellate authority has unrestricted powers to deal with the appeal and consider the grounds available in the records which required reconsideration. The right of appeal is conferred upon an appellant, and the power of the appellate authority is not restricted in any manner either by the provisions of S. 64 or by any of the rules made under the power conferred by the Act. The last clause of S. 64 says that the appeal should be preferred within the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner to the prescribed authority, and the prescribed authority, in this case, the Central Road Traffic Board, should give such person, i. e., the person who is aggrieved by the order, i.e., the appellant before it, and the original authority, i.e., the Regional Transport authority, an opportunity of being heard. Prescribed means of course prescribed by the rules made under the Act and there are no rules made under the Act so far as we are able to see (and our attention was not drawn to any rule) which restricts the powers of the appellate authority in dealing with the matter and confines it only to the grounds, if any, urged by the aggrieved person before the Regional Transport Authority. The opportunity to be given no doubt, is restricted to the person who is aggrieved by the order i.e., the appellant and the original authority; but if a permit was already granted to a person, it will be opposed to all principles of natural justice to cancel that permit without giving the grantee an opportunity of being heard. It is perhaps for this reason we are told that the uniform practice adopted by the Central Road Traffic Board is to issue notice to the person to whom the Regional Transport Authority has granted a permit and that procedure we think is the proper procedure. The restriction in S. 57(4) that no representations should be considered by the Regional Transport Authority, is contained in our opinion to the hearing before the Regional Transport Authority, and it does not extend to the appellate authority, We do not thereby mean that it is open to the appellate authority, to consider grounds or objections not urged by anybody before the Regional Transport Authority, but even if one person urged objections to the grant of the permit, it would be open to another person who had not urged those objections to take advantage of them and urge them as grounds of appeal before the appellate authority, and the appellate authority would be free to consider not only the representations if any made by the appellant but also by other parties who were parties to the proceedings before the Regional Transport Authority. In other words, their discretion is unfettered in the sense that it is open to them to consider all the grounds which were on record when the matter received consideration before the Regional Transport Authority. We think therefore that the contention that the respondent was not entitled to raise the objections which he raised before the Central Road Traffic Board, as he did not raise them before the Regional Transport Authority cannot be upheld. In the result the Letters Patent Appeal is dismissed with costs Rs. 250.